Human Rights Watch's
Women's Rights Project and Middle East division today deplored the assassination
by suspected Islamist militants of Algerian women's rights activist Nabila
Djahnine. Ms. Djahnine, a thirty-year-old architect who led an organization
called the Cry of Women, was killed on February 15 in Tizi Ouzou, the capital
city of the Kabyle region. According to a February 16 El-Watan report, she was
gunned down by two men in a car as she walked to work. No one has claimed
responsibility for the murder, believed to have been committed by Islamist
militants. The killing follows other attacks by extremists on well-known
activists, intellectuals and others opposed to the political goals of the
Islamist opposition.

Ms. Djahnine, a well-known
activist in Tizi Ouzou since she was a student, helped start a magazine called
the Voice of Women in 1990. In her writing, she defended Algerian women's right
to participate in the civil and political life of their country. Despite
escalating attacks on activists known for their opposition to the agenda of the
armed Islamist militants, Ms. Djahnine remained an outspoken advocate for
women's rights. Ms. Djahnine's organization has called for the elimination of
discriminatory provisions from Algeria's family code, which governs marriage,
divorce, child custody and inheritance. The code has been denounced by women
activists in Algeria for denying women their rights and making them minors under
the law regardless of their age.

Since the cancellation of
parliamentary elections in 1992, fighting between the Algerian government and
the armed Islamist opposition has led to a severe deterioration in human rights
conditions in Algeria.

Suspected Islamists have
been detained and subjected to torture and mistreatment in detention. Islamist
militants have targeted civilians from all walks of life - including prominent
intellectuals, public figures, journalists and foreigners - in their armed
struggle.

Increasingly, women have
been the targets of such violence. Women who work outside the home - including
shop-owners, teachers, journalists and magistrates - have been threatened and
killed by Islamist militants. Women have been threatened with violence if they
refuse, or, in other cases, if they choose, to wear the veil. Other women have
been threatened with death by extremists because of their own or family members'
identification with the government or security forces. Algerian defenders of
women's rights believe that the armed Islamist groups target women as important
cultural symbols: by driving women from the streets, the Islamist militants
demonstrate their power to impose the culture they envision for
Algeria.